Playlists for dummies: taming the sansa clip

After purchasing my Sansa Clip (great form factor), I spent countless hours trying to get playlists and podcasts to work properly. Unfortunately the Clip, for all it’s tiny brilliance, doesn’t have folder based browsing.  This  makes file navigation a royal pain - especially for podcasts.  You’ll find plenty of Tagheads who are happy to browse by album, artist or genre - happy to scold everyone who doesn’t have their tags in order - and happy to suggest complex workarounds that shouldn’t be necessary.  It’s ridiculous for example to expect people to fart around with tag information every time new podcasts are downloaded. 

So the only way to make the Clip podcast friendly is to use playlists.  This is also a very confusing subject judging by the number of questions on the forums.  The following is what I suggest Sandisk should include with the sale of each new Clip, recognizing that many who buy one aren’t necessarily very computer savvy.
            -----------------------------------------------------

CREATING PLAYLISTS FOR PODCASTS, MUSIC AND AUDIOBOOKS

In the Clips’ Main menu, go into settings and scroll down til you find USB Mode.
Make sure it’s in Auto Detect.

Plug in the USB cable to your computer and find the player in Explorer (Start, My Computer, Sansa Clip).  Click “Internal Memory” to get to the Clips’ folders.  We’ll call this the Clip Explorer.  If you want to create a podcast playlist, open the Podcast folder and by selecting File, New Folder, create and name it whatever you want.  If you want your podcasts organized into two or three categories, just create more folders.  Do the same for Music and/or Audiobooks.

Leave it open and using Explorer again (Start, My Computer), find the files or folders you want to copy onto the Clip.  We’ll call this the Computer File Explorer.  It’s easier if you put your mp3 files in a folder in the Computer File Explorer first.  Then you can just copy those music, podcast or audiobook folders to the appropriate folder on the Clip (copy and paste). 

What we have done thus far _ does not _ create playlists.  It merely puts all files into a big jumble on the player where they can only be accessed by tags in categories such as Artists, Albums and Genre.  In order to create a list that will play in sequence, we have to create a .pla file (a playlist from those files on the player).  Go back to the Clip Explorer, open a folder (Podcasts for example), select one of your created folders with a Right Click, and then select “Create Playlist” from the drop down menu.  At the bottom you’ll see “New Playlist.pla” flashing.  Now you just name it again whatever you want to and you’re done.  Get out of Explorer and unplug the USB cord.  Whenever you open up the Clip Explorer on your computer again, you’ll find that .pla file in the same folder.  If you want to rearrange the order of that playlist, just double click the .pla file and use the arrows at the bottom of the pop-up window.

The confusing category in the Clip Explorer is Playlists.  This is simply a place where you can drag and drop (or cut and paste) your .pla playlist files and see them all in one place in the Clip Explorer.  You don’t need to put them there.  You can just leave them in the Music, Podcast or Audiobook folders and they’ll still show up as playlists on the player, but if you have a lot of playlists, it is convenient to be able to see them all in one place.

Now we’ll start the Clip and browse to Music, and then Playlists.  Voila.  There they are.  Now when you play a podcast from your podcast playlist, you’ll see for example 03/21 meaning number 3 of 21 total in that playlist.  They’ll play in order and you can skip back and forth.  You’ll notice that if you go into the main Podcast or Audiobook folder instead of your created folders under Playlists, you can only play one file at a time - so remember to access your lists from the Playlist folder.

That was a detailed explanation for those without much computer experience.  A much more succinct version can be found in a post by DG at:
                http://www.sansacommunity.com/forum/thread/11369/Creating-Playlists-for-Sansa-Clip/

    Connect the MP3 player with the USB connector
    Go to My Computer and open Sansa Clip folder
    Go to the Music Folder
    In the Music Folder, right click and make a New Folder and name it.
    Copy and paste all the songs you want to be in a playlist into the New Folder.
    Right click the New Folder with the songs you just dropped in and click on Make Playlist
    Name the Playlist
    Disconnect the MP3 player
    Enjoy.

Hope that relieves a few headaches. 

So you are saying a windows machine knows how to make a playlist sansa can recognize. Please post the procedure for those with a “real” machine, like a Mac or Linux  :smiley:

Note:  files placed in the Clip’s Podcasts and Audiobooks folders do not need to be tagged; the Clip will use the folder and file names for purposes of display and navigation, in that case.

@daft wrote:
So you are saying a windows machine knows how to make a playlist sansa can recognize. Please post the procedure for those with a “real” machine, like a Mac or Linux  :smiley:

This thread provides a bash script for Linux/Unix machines: linux playlist shell script

Connect the MP3 player with the USB connector
Go to My Computer and open Sansa Clip folder
Go to the Music Folder
In the Music Folder, right click and make a New Folder and name it.
Copy and paste all the songs you want to be in a playlist into the New Folder.

Right click the New Folder with the songs you just dropped in and click on Make Playlist  <— I do not have that option, any reason why??  I’d LOVE it if this worked!!

However, I was reading another post and the same thing is worded differently and it worked.

The above instructions should read:

Go into the new folder you created, highlight all the songs in the folder, then right click and select “make playlist”

 
Name the Playlist
Disconnect the MP3 player
Enjoy.

But it’s still not working for me.  I’m getting closer though.  I have a playlist folder on my sansa now and I even have a playlist.wpl file in the playlist folder.  I can see it via explorer but once I unplug the device, I see nothing :cry:

Well, I still see the playlist folder on the device but nothing’s in it, just the golist. 

Message Edited by billy on 04-30-2009 06:46 AM

Message Edited by billy on 04-30-2009 06:55 AM

I GOT IT!!!    :smileyvery-happy:

I’m not totally sure what the final trick was but here’s what I did:

1st!  update Windows Media Player to version 11.   I’ve been working on a work computer, had version 9 installed.

Then watch this video http://mp3support.sandisk.com/wmp11/wmp11playlist.wmv

After watching the video, I was able to do what the person was saying but still nothing came up.

After reading more “playlist” post’s, I caught onto people talking about MTP mode vs. MSC mode.

I’ve been tinkering around with these modes all along but now for some reason, my computer is indeed showing the device in 2 different ways when connected to the computer, when before only MTP mode showed the device (via windows explorer)

If the sansa device shows up as a drive letter (via windows explorer) like…Sansa Clip (E), it won’t work.

Disconnect it and set the setting to MTP, now re-connect the device.

Now when I look at it via windows Explorer, I see a cute little device and it says: Sansa Clip 4GB, as opposed to an actualy drive letter. (and the file structure looks completly different then when it’s connected via MSC mode)

AHHHHH… I just looked under the “playlist” folder on the device and sure enough there’s my playlist file and it ends in a .pla extension.

2 cool!!!

I only made 1 playlist with 1 audio tune for testing reasons, it works.

Now I’ll see about making a few more playlist and see how it all comes together.

Unlike some people on these forums, if anyone has questions as to what I did, ask away and I’ll try to help.  :smiley:

@miikerman wrote:
Note:  files placed in the Clip’s Podcasts and Audiobooks folders do not need to be tagged; the Clip will use the folder and file names for purposes of display and navigation, in that case.

Yeah, I have been using the podcast folder for that. There are some weird aspects, like it doesn’t go to the start of each song, but the last place you left off. Audiobooks doesn’t work for me when I put music in… just seems to disappear. 

@daft wrote:
Please post the procedure for those with a “real” machine, like a Mac or Linux  :smiley:

Lol.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself on that challenge.  I think if I dug this out of the closet, it just might work.

µsansa

Thanks so much!  I was trying to use Rhapsody and it was making me a crazy person.  In the past I used Windows Explorer and folders but not playlists.  Appreciate you took the trouble to write it up!

The URL for the bash script has gone bad.

I’m not surprised, after almost 4 years. This forum went through a complete re-vamp and new host a couple years ago. All previously good links were broken. Your best bet now would probably be Google.

 :smiley: Thank you so much for your help, Billy; you gave the solution that worked!

How do you change to MTP mode in the Sansa Clipsport? I cannot find the option in the settings option on the device.

You’re in the wrong forum–there’s a separate one for Clip Sport.

But the Sport does not have MTP mode, only  MSC.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61/~/enabling-or-forcing-msc-mode-on-your-sansa-player

Thanks! I always thought that all players have the option to have both MTP and MSC mode. I just wondered why it’s not available on all.

No doubt, an engineering decision to try to save costs, in the cut-down Sport.

Or maybe the whole MTP project of digital rights management/misery/mess was finally seen as the infringement on consumer options that it is. You can find mp3s of anything. The whole protected/encrypted/MTP thing was too restrictive.

Except that, MTP mode still is needed for many services, such as Rhapsody and some library lending services.

Just wanted to share my new discovery. There is an application called Sansa Clip Playlist Creator which automates the process of creating a playlist, using it is easy as counting to three so I won’t write tutorials here. Tested it and works wonderfully. So if any of you folks still have old clip in your shelf it’s time to blow out the dust and check this little baby here. Props for anyone who created it.